HAD he not lived in the era of those two superlatively equipped pugilists Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Joe Frazier might well have reigned at the top of the heavyweight division longer than he did. As it was he was its undisputed king from 1968, when he defeated Buster Mathis for the New York State Athletic Commission's version of the title, until 1973 when he was rudely deposed by the raw power of a devastating newcomer, George Foreman.
In between, he participated in one of the most breathtaking world heavyweight title contests ever fought.
At Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1971 he successfully defended his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles against Muhammad Ali, who was returning to the championship ring having been deprived of his title by officialdom four years previously for refusing to fight in Vietnam.
In a classic boxer-versus-fighter match (which many in ringside unashamedly and desperately wanted Ali to win) Frazier demonstrated that he was no mere slugger, cutting off the ring and using his fearsome left hook to neutralise Ali's ringcraft and supreme fistic skills, emerging a points victor after 15 rounds.
JOE Frazier beat Muhammad Ali in the Fight of the Century then spent the rest of his life trying to fight his way out of Ali's shadow.
It was Ali's first defeat in the professional ring and prompted an extraordinary reaction among his devotees.
For many, Frazier's victory seemed to confirm the inevitable ascendancy of brute force over skill whenever those qualities were opposed to each other inside the ropes.
Such a verdict was less than fair to Frazier who combined ferocious punching with footwork that put him in a position to unload his punches on their target.
In the event, the two men were to meet in two more superb contests, with Ali just shading Frazier 2-1 by the end of the third.
Joseph William Frazier was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1944.
Boxing gripped him from youth.
From the early 1950s he was watching contests on his family's television set, and these inspired him to create his own training regime as a child.
This included punching a burlap bag filled with rags, corncobs, and Spanish moss - with a brick at the heart of this bundle.
In 1961 at a local gym the trainer Yancey "Yank" Durham noticed his impressive left hook.
Durham coached Frazier to a victory as champion of the Philadelphia Golden Gloves tournament in 1962.
That same year Frazier began a three-year run as the heavyweight champion of the Middle Atlantic Golden Gloves league.
A reserve in the US boxing team, Frazier was lucky enough to be chosen for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games when Buster Mathis broke his thumb.
Winning the gold medal at heavyweight, he turned professional the following year.
Frazier was relatively small for a heavyweight: 180cm in height and weighing about 93kg as his best fighting weight. But what he lacked in stature or weight he made up for by a non-stop forward-going style that gave his opponents no respite and was to earn him the nickname "Smokin' Joe".
One of his toughest fights on his way to his first world title was that against the durable Argentinian Oscar Bonavena (who was also to give Ali plenty of difficulty in the latter's comeback after being banned from the ring).
In a desperately close fight Frazier was almost out on his feet at the end, but shaded a 10-round points victory by a split decision.
Frazier progressed to a version of world honours (NYSAC) after his 1968 points victory over Mathis.
But that did not really satisfy boxing opinion - certainly not the emergent WBA and its rival, the also-new WBC who were tired of the New York State Athletics Commission's assumption of a monopoly of championship contests.
The up-and-coming Jimmy Ellis had won the WBA's title in 1968 and defended it against the former world champion Floyd Patterson before, at last, being matched against Frazier for the WBA, WBC and NYSAC (which supported the formation of the WBC) titles at Madison Square Garden in February 1970.
The result was never in doubt. From very early on in the contest Frazier looked far too strong for Ellis, constantly ripping into him with his fearsome jabs.
When he put him down in the fourth it became evident that the end could not be far away. In the event Ellis failed to answer the bell for the fifth and Frazier became WBA and WBC champion.
(The NYSAC ceased to be a power in world boxing thereafter.) After disposing of the (very good, but too light) world lightheavyweight champion Bob Foster in his first defence later that year, on March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden, New York, Frazier made the defence that everyone was clamouring to see - against Muhammad Ali, regarded by his supporters as a martyr to bureaucracy which had deprived him of his title in 1967 when no fighter on earth could.
In that fight Ali was to some extent the author of his own destruction, standing with his arms above his head for long periods and defying Frazier to hurt him.
Frazier could - and did.
By the time Ali decided to stop fooling around with this dangerous opponent his legs would no longer obey him, thanks to the champion's relentless body punching.
Frazier staggered Ali badly in the 11th and then knocked him clean off his feet in the 15th, depositing him on the seat of his pants with his legs in the air.
The challenger was left hanging on for dear life simply to survive the round, at the end of which Frazier was still champion.
This was the apogee of Frazier's career.
Having beaten the most famous living boxer in the world in such a decisive fashion he looked absolutely unbeatable.
And yet nemesis was at hand in a remarkably short time. The year 1972 was occupied in disposing successively of the mediocre challenges of Terry Daniels and Ron Stander before, on January 22, 1973, he met George Foreman at the National Stadium, Kingston, Jamaica.
Foreman's reputation was that of a fierce puncher, but he was not particularly agile, certainly not concerned overmuch with evading punishment, and was not thought likely to pose a problem to Frazier.
Confounding all opinion, Foreman knocked Frazier all over the ring in the first round, putting him down three times. He then proceeded to continue doing the same in the second, again dropping Frazier three times, when the intervention of the referee rescued the dethroned champion from further punishment.
Frazier came to London for his next assignment, against the British and Commonwealth champion Joe Bugner in July 1973. Bugner, a big man, put up a brave show, but lost on points over 12 rounds.
A second meeting with Muhammad Ali, again in New York, was eagerly expected, and the two dethroned heavyweight champions met again at Madison Square Garden on January 28, 1974.
This time Ali took no chances, boxing coolly to register a clear-cut win on points over 12 rounds.
After stoppage victories against "Irish" Jerry Quarry in New York and a second against Jimmy Ellis in Melbourne, Frazier was matched for the third time with Ali, who had by this time won back his title, from Foreman, in the "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasa, Zaire (Congo) in October 1974.
The third Ali-Frazier encounter was to have its own resounding title (though one bestowed afterwards rather than in anticipation) "The Thrilla in Manila" (though in fact it was held in Quezon City, a town within the Manila metropolitan area, rather than in the Philippines capital itself).
Although both men were by now rather past their best, it was an affair of relentless attrition, with no quarter asked or given, and with scarcely anyone in ringside prepared to call a result.
But before the 15th and final round could open, Frazier's coach and cornerman, Eddie Futch, pulled his man out of the fight with Frazier slumped on his stool, unable to answer the bell.
Ali, also exhausted almost beyond the point of further endurance, dramatically described the fight afterwards as "the closest thing to death" he had ever experienced.
Frazier fought only twice more.
A second encounter with George Foreman ended again in a technical knockout decision against him, this time in five rounds.
This should have been the end. But for some reason, after an interval of five years he entered the ring again, in Chicago in December 1981, to grind out a completely meaningless draw agaunst the unfancied Floyd Cummings over 10 rounds.
This time he decided to hang up his gloves for good.
In retirement he turned to training and for some years his Smokin' Joe Frazier's Gym in North Philadelphia was one of the city's landmarks.
Among others, he helped to train his son Marvis Frazier, who had a minor career at heavyweight, challenging Larry Holmes for his world heavyweight title, and losing in one round. He was also a one-round KO victim of Mike Tyson.
Frazier also trained his daughter Jackie Frazier-Lyde, a lawyer who took up boxing when in her late thirties. One of her most notable contests was a points loss against Laila Ali, the daughter of her father's great ring rival.
This rivalry seemed likely to hang over Frazier long after both men had retired from the ring, fuelled by Ali's habit of taunting his opponent before, during and after their contests, often in a manner many found tasteless.
For many years Frazier reacted bitterly to Ali's barbs, insisting on occasion that he and not Ali had won two out of their three encounters.
But in 2009 he declared to Sports Illustrated that he no longer harboured ill will towards his erstwhile ring competitor.
Frazier appeared in a number of television sports programmes and in two episodes of The Simpsons.
His autobiography, Smokin' Joe, the Autobiography, was published in 1996. He had won millions of dollars during his ring career, but losses from property holdings were thought to have contributed to financial problems.
Plagued by poor sight, he suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, and in September this year liver cancer was diagnosed.
Frazier had seven children with his wife, Florence, whom he married in 1963.
Joe Frazier, world heavyweight boxing champion, 1968-73, was born on January 4, 1944. He died of cancer on November 7, 2011, aged 6.
From The Times
HAD he not lived in the era of those two superlatively equipped pugilists Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, Joe Frazier might well have reigned at the top of the heavyweight division longer than he did. 
Acne is formed by a collection of sebum (oil), bacteria and dead cells trapped in the lining of the hair follicle (skin pore). Acne is not purely a teenage predicament, 20-
Here's an interesting piece of memorabilia: The Wheat Chex Mail-order catalog. An urban legend claims the Cosmic Smoke Gun was banned from the market for blinding an unfortunate buyer. Truth or fiction, it's highly sought upon by collectors. The Totem Head itself was no stranger to controversy, back in the day some religious groups spoke against it, stating that it promoted paganism amidst young children. Luckily it was not all bad news for this bad boys, as The Official Space Binoculars from the hit Serial "Space Patrol" has seen, not only planes, but it's very retail price get bigger. It's original price of 25 cents has risen to a staggering over 9000!
A place for the discussion and appreciation of cultural artifacts from a long gone and much missed era. An online invitation to discover old gems from simpler times, be it records, films, comic strips, illustrations, publications, collectibles and antiques and all sorts of depressing and pointless nostalgia. Also, the game.
